Survivor
by Yunno
Summary: What happens when the Loonatics are dumped without any of their gear on a deserted island?
1. Chapter 1

Loonatics Unleashed:

"Survivor" part 1.

(This story falls between Seasons 1 & 2)

Rated T for reading level.

Disclaimer: Loonatics Unleashed and related Characters and Elements are trademarks of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

"Give it up, Massive!" Ace goosed his jet pack to dodge around the huge, blue skinned villain. The glow in the Loonatic leader's eyes matched the bright yellow triangular chest shield of his costume. He shot his eye lasers at the seat of the gravity villain's pants to keep him from bringing the weight of the world down on Tech as the coyote brought up his Gravity Stabilization Gyro. Of course, as he knew from previous experience that Massive's body was so dense that his laser eyes would do him no harm. But it should be enough to get his attention anyway.

"Did some-bunny say UP?" Massive taunted. The huge, blue skinned man targeted Ace and his Loonatics with his gravity defying power. "Now half of you reach for the sky! And the rest of you hit the ground."

"Errraaah!" Weathervane screamed in frustration as Danger Duck quacked away from yet another lightning strike. The annoying fowl's taunts were throwing off her aim. Cocooned in her floating weather anomaly sphere, the purple tressed weather girl gathered the humidity and updrafts so prevalent around Meteor Bay, forming a huge, roiling cloud bank capable of producing the massive amounts of lightning that she was determined to rain down on Misty Breeze's biggest fan. Suddenly she found the duck floating up towards her as Massive altered the Loonatics' gravity. Weathervane smirked as she worked the clouds to produce sheet lighting to engulf the mallard instead of strikes.

"I really need ta engage da team in more zero gravity training." Ace found himself lighter than air and temporarily unable to maneuver. He'd use his laser blasts to propel him through the air except Duck was floating right in front of him; and as tempting a target his braggart teammate made, he'd better forebear. The Loonatic leader took a few moments to assess the situation. He, Danger, and Lexi were all floating helplessly above the bay where the meteor that had given them all powers had struck. While Slam, Rev, and Tech were pinned down on the wharf with several remaining giant robots that they had been fighting. The only thing that saved the suddenly heavy roadrunner from the big stomp was that the robots' creator abruptly changed their targeting to the now immobile coyote. And though the three foot tall terror was nowhere to be seen, the cybernetic shock troops were definitely Mastermind's handiwork.

"Say, Chief," Tech's pressed voice came over the bunny's yellow wrist communicator. The coyote scientist was pressed flat on the pavement. Luckily, after previous encounters with the gravity manipulator, Tech had modified his gyro to be magnetically activated. The coyote's eyes glowed green and he shot his leader with a wave of stabilizing gravity. "You need to get your head out of the clouds."

"Maybe so, Tech." Suddenly weighted again, Ace shot his eye lasers at the ground rushing up at him, slowing his descent with the kickback. He blinked his eyes cutting off his lasers and flipped, landing in a crouch before straightening. "But I'd say you really need to lighten up."

"Good point." Tech swung the Gravity Stabilization Gyro over the rest of the team. He rolled out of the way of the robots stomping toward him. Rev speedily gathered up Danger and Lexi to cushion their landings while Slam spun a tornado into Massive, knocking the gravity manipulator up into Weathervane, and the both of them into a nearby skyscraper. After being suspended for a heartbeat, the two semi-conscious villains fell to land in a heap on the pavement below. Rev ran around the remaining robots unscrewing their bolts at light speed while Lexi loosed pink blasts of brain power at them to knock them apart.

"Yawn." Danger stated, looking around at the battered super villains. It was becoming almost routine defeating Weathervane, Massive, and Mastermind. The mallard glanced around to ensure there were no other baddies lurking in the warehouse district. Though he boasted with considerable pride of his prowess, Danger was secretly glad that the terrifying trio hadn't busted Sypher out of prison as well when they escaped. That egomaniac power sucker was always a real pain in the tail feathers . . . apparently to the other super villains as well. Sypher had tried to double cross the villainous trio when they were previously released by Optimatus. "When are you losers ever going to learn that no one can stand up to the fearless and dashing Danger Duck!"

"Oh? is that so." Mastermind's mocking singsong voice intruded on Danger's delusions of grandeur. The bulb-headed villainess stepped out of the alleyway from which she'd been directing her robot attack force and over to the recovering Weathervane. She threw a double handful of silvery dust into the light whirlwind that the weather witch managed to stir up covering the Loonatics in her specially created nanites. She'd have liked to infest Tech directly with the microscopic metal pests, but the mangy cur was clumped in the middle of his teammates and she'd have to go through them first.

"Mallory! What have you done!" Tech ignored Mallory Casey's taunting laugh and concentrated instead on her gloating explanations of how her new nanites worked. The nanites' effectiveness was short lived before they burned themselves out, but it was long enough. In a matter of moments all the Loonatics' high tech weaponry, their wrist communicators, and even their belt buckles crumbled and sifted to the ground. "Instead of taking over our equipment, your new strain of nanites actually disrupt the atomic lattices of all metal they come in contact with. And without heat sink capabilities themselves, the resultant energy conversion destroys them before they can spread to surrounding technology thus leaving you with plenty of raw material for your technopathy power to activate. Brilliant."

"I try." Despite herself, the compliment from her one-time tutor greatly pleased Mastermind. Tech's compliments came rarely, only when he was genuinely impressed with another's work. Coming from the super genius, that was high praise indeed. Not one to stand on sentimentality, however, the supervillianess lost no time in not only reanimating her destroyed robots, but in utilizing the demolished vehicles that littered the street to make more.

"Technopathy? What is that? Some kind of disease?" Duck's snide voice cut through the mayhem on the street.

"According-to-the-documented-lexicon-of-superpowers,-Technopathy-is-the-ability-to-manipulate-technology-and-is-often-manifested-as-a-special-form-of-electrical-or-telekinetic-manipulation-but-sometimes-as-a-special-form-of-shapeshifting-which-allows-for-physical-interaction-with-machines-or-even-a-specialized-form-of-ESP-that-allows-for-mental-interface-with-computer-data. Though-of-course,-Mastermind's-particular-brand-of technopathy-is-most-likely-of-the-former-variety. It-really-is-lucky-for-us-though-that-most-of-what-Mastermind-comes-up-with-is-based-solely-in-her-superpower-and-not-in-scientific-fact-which-means-that-once-the-power-she-infuses-into-her-creations-is-spent-they-fall-apart-again-unlike-Tech's-which-are-true-scientific-advancements-and-can-be-used-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-again." Rev continued his high speed explanation oblivious to the effect his unintentional slight to the mastermind criminal had on the big headed villain. Angry, Mastermind added huge blades to her attack bots. Nor was the roadrunner aware of Tech staring forlornly at the remains of his gravity gun which had disintegrated with the last of the nanites as if it was one of Mastermind's cobbled together inventions. He had hoped the invention had escaped the nanite attack. Horribly offended, the coyote started growling. "And-siccing-metal-eating-nanties-on-us? Now-that-was-sooooo-effecitve-NOT! I-mean-really-losing-all-metal-and-weapons-and-things-might-be-a-bit-of-an-inconvenience-but-certainly-nothing-to-be-dismayed-about. As-Duck-says-our-bare-hands-are-lethal-weapons!

"My . . . my baby." Tech started at the dust of his Gravity Stabilization Gyro for only a moment before his eyes and hands started glowing a brilliant emerald green. His low growl morphed into a full fledged howl as he first magnetized the metal monstrosities drawing them toward each other as well as the Loonatics in the middle, then abruptly reversing polarity causing the robots to repel each other and violently throw themselves back into the ones behind them. Parts and pieces of robot flew every-which-way, knocking divots out of the surrounding buildings and crushing parked vehicles in the street. One of the robots exploded as its power cored was breached. He turned his magnetic power on the metal costume that Mallory wore. He snarled. "I really need to update the prison security again."

Mastermind gasped and dived out of the way, surprised at her old tutor's ferocity. Tech destroyed her creations faster than she could put them together, and she barely managed to keep from being dragged in by his infernal magnetic power. "You mangy dog! How dare you destroy mamma's little babies!"

Mastermind wasn't the only one stunned by Tech's actions. The Loonatics stared between their mild mannered scientist, still trying to tag Masternind with his magnetism, and the devastation around them. Tech really needed to get out of the lab more if the destruction of his inventions upset him this badly. The Acme heroes had no time for further reflection. Mastermind dived behind Massive and Weathervane who had used the intervening time to fully recover.

Ace's eyes suddenly widened as he saw the trap the villains had maneuvered them into. The villains had managed to herd all the team into one spot for a concentrated attack. "Loonatics, scatt! . . ."

A deafening thunderclap interrupted the Loonatic leader's command to scatter, rattling the windows in the nearby wharf warehouses and stunning Acmetropolis' erstwhile heroes. As Ace struggled against blacking out, he saw Massive crush the rest of Mastermind's robots to lighten the Loonatics so Weathervane could blow them all out to sea. "So long, Loonatics. Oh, and have a nice day."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I will see Tech reduced to a whimpering little puppy dog. And once his great mind is unhinged, the rest of the Loonatics will never stand a chance against me and my constructs!" Cunning delight shone in Mastermind's eyes as she watched the dwindling specks that were their adversaries. It was always Tech who foiled her. He ruined her life work back at the academy. It was his EMP and his confrontation that was her undoing when she had taken over Loonatic Tower. It was he who figured out the security code override when they had captured most of the Loonatics and trapped them in her old cell. And it was the dog's prison security measures that kept them all incarcerated. It was only due to human error of her guard that allowed them to escape this time at all. "Where they're going, the Loonatics will soon be destroyed!"

"I give them three days. Tops." Weathervane let her disdain of a certain orange and black clad duck fan her southwesterly breezes. Insanity was too good a fate for the avid Misty Breeze fan.

Massive grinned at his female cohorts. They each might have a best enemy among the Loonatics, but he didn't play favorites. He'd just pound them all. "And then we just drop in and pick them off."


	2. Chapter 2

Loonatics Unleashed:

"Survivor" part 2.

(This story falls between Seasons 1 & 2)

Rated T for reading level.

Disclaimer: Loonatics Unleashed and related Characters and Elements are trademarks of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Orange Triangle.

"We're doomed! Doomed, I tell you!" Panting, Danger Duck dragged himself through the fine, white sand under the burning sun in the sky. His black uniform in tatters and his throat parched, there was no way he could survive any longer! The mallard paused to bring a melodramatic hand to his brow still muttering words of doom and despair before crawling bravely onward. Danger was the first to admit when things were hopeless. If there was a foe for him to fight, no problem. In a battle situation, no doubt plagued him, no fear weakened his resolve. The brave and handsome superhero could defeat any foe! Alone and unaided, he literally kicked butt when fighting Optimatus to free Zadavia when her brother released the super villains to destroy them in the incident they came to call the 'Acmegeddon' incident. Not to mention all the other times he taunted death in the course of being an action hero. But take away any course of action, trap him in a falling spaceship—or on a deserted island with no hope of rescue—when there was no viable course of action, he fell apart. "Doomed, doomed, doomed!"

Not ten feet from where he'd begun, Danger bumped into a stocky pair of hairy legs. Screaming hysterically about cannibals, the desperate mallard threw himself backward. He slowly looked up, his blue eyes traveling up the muscular being standing over him.

"Gblchpppttttnngbl drink, Duck" Slam handed a half coconut shell full of a coconut milk and fresh pineapple juice to his short teammate.

Duck leaped to his feet and took a sip his drink, blowing off the whole embarrassing incident of him freaking out like water off a duck's back. "Yeah? well I still say we're doomed."

"Dere is no situation so bad dat it can't be made worse by whining about it, Duck," Ace quipped.

"Chill, Duck, its only been two days. You can't be losing your mind yet." Lexi exchanged glances with Ace and sat up on one of the handmade beach lounges that Tech and Rev had fashioned for them. It was actually just a day and a half ago that, after what felt like forever, Massive's extra light influence had worn off. Then Weathervane's prevailing winds had dumped them to fall screaming from the sky to land in an unceremonious heap on the white sand of this primitive island. A slight smile crested Lexi's lips. Danger had gotten the brunt of that mishap as he landed at the bottom of the pile and had to quack himself out. The only real complaint that she had was that, after they had picked themselves up and take assessment of their situation, she realized she'd taken the one way trip to paradise without her suntan lotion or swimming suit.

The island was truly a paradise with warm, blue waters lapping at a strip of dazzling white sand. In the center of the island was a small mountain from which a spring of fresh water flowed surrounded by a lush jungle, verdant with vibrant pinks, blues, purples, and even some green. Exotic blossoms in brilliant colors abounded, though one had to beware of the spiked plants as well. Even the sky here was a bright, shining blue instead of the sultry purple that was so prevalent over most of the planet. Lexi stretched and settled back into the woven wicker lounge. "Besides, this place is even better than Acmepulco."

"How can you say that?!" Danger protested. "I don't even have a mirror on me!"

"Duck, you're impossible." Lexi commented not even bothering to open her eyes again.

"Ridiculous. The most I allow myself is highly improbable." Hmm. What Lexi said made some sense though. Danger flicked through the possibilities in his mind. If there were other places like this left on Acmetropolis where nature's pristine beauty remained undisturbed, he could make a killing in the tourist trade. Once the proper 'improvements' were made, of course. Dollars signs lit up his his blue eyes and a distinct cha'ching echoed through his thoughts.

"Eh, on second thought," Ace cut in, "Maybe he has lost his mind. Not dat dere was much to lose in the foist place."

The waterfowl glared at the snickering lagomorphs. "You're despicable."

Ace smirked as Danger settled into a neighboring beach lounge. When they'd first landed on the island, Ace asked Rev to figure out where they were using his internal GPS. Though the bright red glow lit the roadrunner's eyes indicating that he was working on it, he'd had trouble orienting. Rev complained that the earth-shift beneath them seemed off somehow. It was then that Tech recommended he adjust his tracking for the southern hemisphere. What ensued was a highly technical discussion of longitudinal and latitudinal lines that somehow involved whirlpools spinning in opposite directions in the different hemispheres that left everyone except the roadrunner and coyote glassy eyed with incomprehension. The two's discussion nearly turned into an argument before Ace sent Rev off for a run around the island to scope it out. Much to Slam's delight, as near as any of them could figure out, the closest thing to them that even remotely resembled civilization was Tasmania in Acme-Australia. And even that was too far to swim. Since then, Ace set his team to making the best of the situation . . . and they'd done a pretty good job of it so far.

Rev raced up to his teammates, circling them twice and kicking up a small whirlwind of sand before he managed to come to a stop in front of them. "Slam,-Tech's-ready-for-you-now,-if-you-have-a-minute. Of-course-he's-still-ready-for-you-even-if-you-don't-have-a-minute-but-perhaps-you-could-spare-him-at-least-half-a-minute. In-a-minute-when-you're-ready."

Slam spun off after Rev a little ways off through the jungle to where Tech set up an open air lab. Having nothing better to do, Ace, Lexi, and Danger followed them.

"I'm amazed really," Duck taunted as he followed behind the others. "Poor Techy getting stuck on a low tech island. I wouldn't be surprised if our mad scientist really did go mad, flip his lid, lose his marbles, go completely around the bend."

They came out from amide the lush foliage and into a clearing; they stopped. Even Danger stood agog at the sight before them. The entire clearing was filled with makeshift tables and shelves made of planks of driftwood and boulders filled with sprawling 'lab' equipment made from what was available on the island. Ace started in surprise at the number of implements that Tech and Rev had fashioned from the glass that he had laser blasted from sand for them. Glass tubes and beakers filled with unidentifiable liquids bubbled over Bunsen burners and dripped into coconut shell halves. There was even a glass tube filled with some clear liquid that had smaller glass balls of various colored liquids in them that seemed to float up and down in it depending on the temperature. But that all was dwarfed by the rambling planks, bamboo tubes, wooden and stone gears, levers, pendulums, and pulleys strung up all over the clearing by vines and ropes twisted from the fibers of coconut husks. It looked like an enormouse combination coo coo clock and hourglass turned inside out. 'Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes.' Latin engravings covered one of the larger planks which when interpreted read 'If you can read this, you are over educated.'

Danger threw up his hands in mock exasperation at the sight of Tech's new lab. "Even on a low tech island, Tech is high tech."

"Genius will out." Tech chuckled good naturedly. His smile faded in the memory of his first moments on the island.

Tech remembered bracing himself, his eyes, then hands glowing emerald as he sent out his magnetic influence as far as he could. Tech covered all points around him with his magnetic glow. 180 degrees, in the sky above and in the ground beneath there was not a scrap of metal. When Rev had come back from scouting the island, reporting it to be a deserted, Tech finally stopped and fell exhausted and depressed to his knees on the sandy beach. There was absolutely no technology anywhere within range. No metal at all, and precious little for his magnetic power to work with. Without metal, how would he invent what his team needed to survive, let alone escape, this primitive place?

The phenomenon described in physics as magnetism explains how materials exert attractive or repulsive forces on other materials. The well-known materials of iron, cobalt, nickel, and their alloys all exhibit easily detectable magnetic properties; however, all materials are influenced to greater or lesser degree by the presence of a magnetic field. Also magnetism is also one of the two components of electromagnetic waves such as light. This was why he was able to make a magnetic shield with his powers that deflected the meteor pieces when the second, larger meteor threatened Acmetropolis one year after the original one. But it took an excessive amount of concentration and energy to affect nonferrous materials.

Luckily, it hadn't taken long for Tech's inventive genius to find other outlets.

"Yep, definitely around the bend." Danger clicked his tongue, tsk'ing the evident madness of their genius.

"You'd a done Rube Goldberg proud." Ace commented. Sand finished trickling out of the hole in the bottom of one coconut shell dish, causing the cog and teeter-totter like affair upon which it sat to tilt the other way. A small round pebble was released and rolled down a narrow connection of bamboo tubes to plop into another coconut shell some feet below. With a loud 'clunk,' yet another trigger tripped, and more sand started pouring back into the first bowl.

"Not to mention your ancestor Wile E. Coyote," Lexi added. She seemed to remember seeing a vaguely similar contraption in an old Looney Tune's documentary on the ancient desert dweller. The she-bunny wondered if Rev felt uncomfortable working around a contraption that so closely resembled an old style roadrunner trap.

Rev smirked setting Lexi's concerns to rest. "Yeah,-but-it-still-won't-catch-a-roadrunner."

"Don't tempt me." Tech replied in mock warning. The genius pulled Slam aside to start him on the the project.

"Eh, what's it all for, Tech?" Ace hated to get the scientist going on his overly complicated explanations, but he really had no idea what he was looking at. A small part of the bunny worried that just perhaps the lack of technology really had driving the coyote insane. Much to the Loonatic leader's surprise, Tech answered with a single word 'clock' never even looking up from pouring various substances into a large stone vat and setting Slam to spin it like a homemade centrifuge. Ace smirked. It seemed that a good strategy to getting a simple, straightforward answer from the genius was to wait until he was busy with something else. "I'll hafta remember dat trick."

Tech checked on Slam's progress while Rev launched into an explanation of how the hourglass effects of the falling sand and pebbles ran the counterbalances and ballasts of the giant mechanical clock and calendar counter. Ace cut short the roadrunner's ramblings.

"But, eh, why a clock, doc?"

"According to my calculations, Chief, we can expect Mastermind, Massive, and Weathervane to drop in on us in," Tech paused to check his apparatus, giving it a whack to dislodge an irregularly shaped pebble that seemed to be slowing up the works, "in approximately 2.78 days. I have that long to come up with something that will help us defeat them."

"Oh." Ace thought maybe it would be a good idea if he came up with a plan of attack as well. He wandered around Tech's makeshift lab looking for inspiration.

Bored with Rev's explanation of the calendar-clock, Danger took a pinch of the harsh scented, black sand-like substance that Tech dumped out of Slam's crucible. "What's this stuff?"

"Sometimes-I-feel-like-an-interpreter." Rev sighed. It seemed like he spent half his life explaining Tech's experiments and inventions, and the other half of his life running errands for him. "Of course,-it-wasn't-much-different-growing-up. There-were-two-languages-spoken-at-home-as-well."

"What? Fast and Faster?" Danger snorted.

"Ha. Ha. Noooo,-Precise-and-Emotive. Pop-and-Rip-usually-speak-emotively,-painting-word-pictures-to-express-themselves. While-mom-and-I-tend-to-use-a word's-precise-meaning-to-convey-our-ideas. Tech's-even-worse-with-his-technical-jargon." Rev paused. It often wasn't easy breaching the communication gaps in his family, though oddly enough it was usually Rip and their pop who couldn't . . . or perhaps more accurately wouldn't . . . understand each other. Rev and Harriot's literal translation of speech was a trait that Ralf Runner loved in his wife and admired in his son. But Rip and Pa Runner had a hard time acknowledging how alike they really were. They even wore their feather head crests the same way, not that anyone dared point this out to the two feuding birds. Rev shook his head, coming back to the present.


	3. Chapter 3

Loonatics Unleashed:

"Survivor" part 3.

(This story falls between Seasons 1 & 2)

Rated T for reading level.

Disclaimer: Loonatics Unleashed and related Characters and Elements are trademarks of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

"But-to-answer-your-first-question,-Duck," Again, Rev launched into an explanation, this time on combining sulpher, charcoal, and potassium nitrate, also called saltpeter or saltpetre, into gunpowder. "Of-course,-the-only-abundant-source-of-potassium-nitrate-on-this-island-is-seagull-droppings."

"Eww!" A look of disgust danced across Danger's face. He dropped the black powder and shook his hand. The mallard turned his revolted glare onto the coyote. "I think I like you better as a techno-geek than as a chemist."

Danger Duck stalked off to join Slam at the stream of water running near the lab that they had diverted from the island's only river to wash his hand. Slam was washing out the stone vat by filling it with water, sand and rocks and spinning it around. When the Tasmanian devil dumped it out, Danger found that it had acted like a rock tumbler. The mallard gathered up the polished, round stones and took them over to one of the flatter tables to play a game of marbles with himself.

A not entirely unpleasant sound erupted as a small shower of pebbles tipped out of Tech's mechanical timepiece and cascaded against a wind chime assortment of reed pipes and shells. Lexi smiled and wandered over to the wind chime. "What's this?"

"Hour-marker," Rev replied as he whipped off a wooden ring that Tech had given him. He explained to Lexi that in the 18th century, the Benedictine Monks in the forests of Prussia used these small devises to tell when it was time for prayer. The roadrunner used his internal GPS to angle the ring dial, then pointed the hole in the band directly at the sun. He noted with a frown at where the bead of light fell on the markings etched on the inside surface. Rev slipped the wearable sundial back on his finger. "Your-calculations-are-still-two-degrees-off,-Tech."

"My calculations are correct, Rev." A touch of annoyance was evident in the coyote's voice. But truth be told he was more frustrated with his primitive working conditions than with Rev's flippancy. He was having a deuce of a time getting his mechanical timepiece calibrated. At least there were no explosives involved in its running or it certainly would have blown up by now. "It's the vagaries in the ballast that's throwing off the timing."

A small 'clink' drew Tech's attention to Danger, and the coyote's olive green eyes lit up. "Duck!"

"What? I didn't do it. It's all his fault." Danger rambled trying to figure out what had riled up the coyote. The mallard pointed a finger at the Tasmanian devil. Slam growled at the duck's attempt to implicate him. "The devil made me do it!"

Tech pounced, snagging the mallard's marbles. He rolled the nearly perfectly round stones briefly in his hands before handing them to Rev. "Perfect! Rev, please replace the timing ballast with these."

"Hey!" Danger protested. Now what was he going to do to keep himself occupied while everyone was nerd-ing out around him?

"What's matter, Duck? Lost yer marbles?" Ace snickered.

"Very funny," Danger retorted.

"Oh, and that reminds me," Tech called after Rev as the roadrunner added the marbles to the mechanical clock. "Grab those things for the others that we made earlier would you?"

"Go-fer-this,-Rev,-go-fer-that. I'm-a-roadrunner,-not-a-gofer!" Rev griped quietly to himself. Lexi's supersensitive hearing picked up the roadrunner's uncharacteristic complaint and she tugged down the corners of her mouth with her fingers to prevent the smile that threatened them. Rev sighed, but grabbed the stuff anyway. Sometimes he really didn't like being the fastest. It made him the all too logical choice for fetch and carry jobs. Contemplation furrowed Rev's brow. Ever since his near death experience in the 'Acmegeddon' incident, he'd found himself less and less satisfied just letting others dictate to him. Life was too precious, too short to waste on being a gofer. Not to say that he resented Tech in any way. Despite him being a coyote and ancestral enemy to roadrunners, Tech was always there for him. Tech was not just a friend, perhaps even best friend, to him; the coyote was more like a big brother . . . always watching out for him, but he sometimes bossed him around like one, too.

Rev smiled this time and started pulling out improved hammocks and orthopedic sandals for everyone, a perfectly balanced practice shinai for Ace, a set of hand weights for Slam, a shell comb and orchid perfume for Lexi, and even a mirror of sorts for Danger Duck. Some had been his ideas and some Tech's. They both had worked on the amenities together.

"Aha! Rev, you're a genius!" Tech snatched a single, long blond hair from Lexi's comb after she tried it out. Because of their natural tensile strength, blond hairs always worked better for the barometric experiments he planned. But the genius had been wondering how to pull one of Lexi's hairs without getting himself brain blasted in the process. Just as he had been at a complete loss as for what to make for Lexi to feel more at ease during their exile. The comb and perfume were Rev's ideas.

"Duck, I have a little request for you." Tech continued. It seemed that Danger liked his mirror, perhaps the fowl wouldn't be adverse to helping out a little in return.

"Well sure, Danger Duck is always ready to come to the aid of his teammates . . . as long as it's not work." Danger struck a noble pose, then deflated somewhat as he realized who was making the request. He had no desire to become a test subject. "Uh, just what did you have in mind?"

"Do you think you could make some polydimethylsiloxane eggs for me?" the coyote asked.

"Poly what? I can't even pronounce it, let alone produce it." Duck stared at the coyote as if he'd just grown a third arm.

" Polydimethylsiloxane-is-an-amazingly-clear,-thin-viscoelastic-liquid-polymer-with-distinctive-optical-properties-that-can-be-manipulated-depending-upon-the-curing-process-to-make-a-wide-range-of-items,-but-is-particularly-useful-in-making-flexible-lenses." Rev smirked at Danger's uncomprehending stare. "It's-also-the-prime-component-of silly-putty."

Seeing a protest forming on the anthropomorphic duck's face, Lexi set her fists on her hips. "Oh come on, Duck. Give it a try. If you can do tar, you can do silly putty."

"If I can get the materials I need, I can make a small weather station that will detect Weathervane's travel weather anomaly sphere as well as a hydrometer for detecting Massive." Tech place the blond hair carefully with the other components he'd been gathering. "As you might know, specific gravity is the ratio of the density of a given substance to the density of water when both are at the same temperature. Massive disrupts the relative density of matter around him, ergo, if I make a hydrometer we can detect his approach before he actually arrives."

Danger's brain tuned out as he hear the word 'anomaly.' The mallard started playing with his eggs, trying to come up with the pink, gooey clay like substance that was silly putty. He got several tar eggs, which he dropped into Slam's stone vat, and more than a few power and fire eggs by accident. Those he threw in the air to detonate harmlessly above their heads.

"Duck, don't play around with your eggs in the lab." Ace scolded the mallard. One never knew just how stable Tech's inventions were, especially in the experimental stage.

"Oh, pul-ease." Danger tossed another fire egg up behind his back to catch again before launching it into the air to detonate harmlessly over the foliage. "This is a jungle clearing, not a laboratory."

Unfortunately, sparks from the fire egg rained down on Tech's chemistry set. With a cry of alarm, Tech threw himself over the table containing not only many of his distillations from the local flora, but the gunpowder as well. The coyote's act saved his teammates from the resulting explosion, but it threw the charred coyote into the giant mechanical clockworks. Tech smacked into the pendulum swinging with it too far until it overbalance onto a geared lever and knocking out the fulcrum. Sand, gravel, and a whole vat of stones rained down on the hapless coyote. Moments passed, then a huge boulder set at the top for a counterbalance, tumbled down as well.

"Oopsie."

Slam pried the boulder off the scientist. Tech's low growl erupted even before he completely regenerated. Danger quacked out before the coyote could fix on him. For a time only Tech's growls could be heard, then Slam picked up the scientist and dusted him off before setting him back on his feet.

Seeing the lab in shambles, the Tasmanian devil figured now was as good a time as any to drag Tech off. It would give the coyote time to settle down before encountering Danger again. Besides, for Slam, eating was a social event, a meal shared was always preferable than dining alone. Without waiting for a reply, the devil snagged Tech's arm, dragging the genius with him toward the deeper parts of the jungle. "Kkrrn ppptttt, you promised."

"Slam, that was before Duck demolished my lab. I can't leave now." Slam's deep rumble filled the clearing and Tech dropped his protests. While the island had a profusion of fruits and herbs the Loonatics could use for food, it was not large enough to sustain the six of them over an extended period of time. None of them planned on staying that long, but one never knew. When Slam suggested that the two of them hunt to feed themselves and save the majority of the vegetarian food supply for the others the coyote had agreed. "Oh, all right. I'll be up all night repairing this mess anyway. A couple of hours won't make any difference."

"Oh!-I-want-to-come. Can-I-come,-too? Please-huh-huh-huh?" Rev was practically bouncing in anticipation. He didn't know where Tech and Slam were headed, but he'd been stuck in the lab all day too and he could use a break as well.

"No!" Tech snapped out before thinking. He saw hurt flit briefly over his best friend's face before being replaced by anger. The scientists groaned. He'd never been very good at tact. "Look, Rev, you don't want to come. You don't know where we're going; and trust me, you don't want to."

A stubborn frown set Rev's face at his friend's refusal. He wasn't willing to be accommodating anymore . . . and he didn't care how much his best friend pleaded with his eyes not to be forced to speak his reasons for leaving him behind. He was tired of being treated as everyone's kid brother or the team mascot!

"Rev, please. Slam and I are going to find something to eat and it will be . . . a little too rare for your taste."

Rev stared a moment longer into his best friend's olive green eyes; then he turned away, slightly sick to the stomach. He knew it; he accepted it. He was just glad that Tech was considerate about being a carnivore and a predator. Even though Rev's and Duck's ancestors were omnivorous, they definitely were not hunters . . . at least not in the same sense as Tech and Slam. And the bunnies's ancestry were definite herbivores. Though Tech was a practicing omnivore, as attested to by the copious amount of pizza he ate; the coyote definitely had the racial preferences of his kind.

Tech smiled a little lopsidedly and patted his friend on the shoulder. "Just keep the others on this side of the island, okay?"

"Sure thing, Tech." Rev shook his head as his two teammates headed into the jungle. Maybe tomorrow he'd start to assert himself and become his own bird.

Seeing Slam haul Tech off, Danger dared come back. "So, where're those two heading?"

Lexi grimmaced. She'd heard Rev's and Tech's entire exchange. "Trust me, you don't want to know."

"Oookay." The mallard could think of a number of things the two could do in the woods alone together; and Lexi was right. He did NOT want to know. Danger turned his attention to a light pink powder in a shell dish that had somehow escaped the earlier catastrophe. "So what's this stuff? Not as disgusting as gunpowder, I hope."

Rev smirked as Danger poked at it, then sneezed. Tech had formulated several concentrated indigenous herb extractions calculated induce a semi-catatonic state. Duck stretched, then curled up on the ground asleep and already snoring. Tech would be pleased to hear it worked. "Sleeping-powder."


	4. Chapter 4

Loonatics Unleashed:

"Survivor" part 4.

(This story falls between Seasons 1 & 2)

Rated T for reading level.

Disclaimer: Loonatics Unleashed and related Characters and Elements are trademarks of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Red Triangle.

"Wahoo! This-is-great!" Rev sped along, but for once the roadrunner was neither running nor flying. He was securely ensconced in a kayak with a double-bladed paddle. The roadrunner had already taken his teammates water skiing by running rapidly over the bay with them in tow, now it was his turn for fun! Rev raced over from the waterfall from where he was experimenting with the sheer line all along the bottom of the waterfall. There was no avoiding it in his attempt at extreme sport kayaking, though he did have to use his power of flight on two occasions to avoid potentially deadly spills. The water was excessively turbulent and more than once he wished for Danger's quacking ability or Tech's molecular regeneration. There was nothing but white water for the length of the upper channel, but eventually he zipped past the large boathouse that Slam, Ace, and Danger made to house their crowning invention. He passed the makeshift peer, hammocks slung between trees, beach lounges, and even a drink bar . . . all new since the Loonatics arrived. If they were stuck on a deserted tropical isle, they might as well make it paradise. By the time he finally got his kayak out onto the bay, Rev was leisurely rowing.

A couple of hollow bamboo shoots slided through the water towards the lanky bird's kayak. Ace and Lexi broke surface near their friend and teammate. The two bunnies took the curved pipes from their mouths and shook the water out of their long ears. Between the glass that Ace's laser vision had helped refine and the silicone eggs that Duck eventually had come up with, they even had swimming goggles to wear while snorkeling. They had stripped off the ragged excess parts of their Loonatics uniforms and wore the main bodies of them like spring suits. Lexi showed several nacre beads in her hand. "Look, Rev, pearls!"

"Cha ching! Did someone say 'pearls?'" Excited, Danger sprang off the lounge, instantly wide awake. He had been faking a nap to avoid any of the high energy activities of his friends. The mallard quacked over to the bunnies to see the pearls. He interrupted Rev's ramblings on oysters and how they turn irritating minute objects like grains of sand that becomes trapped within the mollusk's mantle folds into pearls by reappearing on the roadrunner's kayak and dumping them both into the drink. Danger bobbed back to the surface like the duck he was, still considering how best to take monetary advantage of nature's bounties.

"Speaking of irritants," Lexi quipped.

"You-wouldn't-think-playing-in-the-water-would-make-you-so-thirsty." Rev dragged his waterlogged kayak ashore leaving Ace and Lexi to deal with the avarice duck. He then dragged himself over to where Slam was mixing drinks at the palm thatched juice bar. The Tasmanian devil handed Rev a hollowed out pineapple complete with little flowers and miniature umbrellas filled with juice. Even though the devil and coyote's hunts went well, Slam had pretty much decimated the stock of coconut, papaya, guava, banana, and pineapple that the Loonatics had gathered earlier that day. He did manage to save enough for his teammates, though. "Thanks-Slam. Wow,-this-is-almost-as-good-as-the-shakes-I-make-at-home. In-fact-it's-better!"

Ace looked around the beach as he slogged ashore. No one was using the bamboo lounges with thatch umbrellas over them. The Loonatic leader wandered over to where Tech was kneeling in the sand building something. He grinned, just glad he finally got Tech out of the lab . . . even here. He'd practically had to drag the scientist to the beach and he actually did threaten the stubborn coyote with a laser blast to the tail before he consented. Ace felt it important for all of them to take a bit of vacation while they were here. As Ace approached Tech playing in the sand, his grin sank. Tech was not building a sandcastle as the bunny first supposed, but rather the coyote was constructing a scale model for some sort of observatory that he wanted to build. Before Ace could order Tech to stop working and just enjoy himself, various clangs, bangs, and booms of Rev and Tech's early warning weather and gravity alarms chimed over the beach.

"Huh, what d'ya know? Dey finally arrived." Ace grinned as Tech stood beside him and brushed off the sand. "So, Tech, ya got any 'hand-crafted precision alloy instruments' dat we can use?"

"Nope. Sorry, Chief." Tech grinned. "But I do have a few toys . . .."

Tech triggered a lever and a bamboo framework shed sand as it rose from its hiding place in the beach. On the rack was a display of coconuts with fuses and leaf packets of sleeping dust. There was even a full sized ballista complete with a huge kite big enough to carry a person ready to launch.

As the trio of Weathervane, Mastermind, and Massive came closer in Weathervane's egg-shaped weather anomaly, the Loonatics could hear Mastermind gloating over their upcoming demise. "Five days, my compeers, five days without so much as a text message will have driven the Loonatics loony! I've waited a long time for this; we all have. Never again will those accursed so called heroes interfere with my plans. Never again will that mongrel harm my precious inventions. Today my revenge shall be complete!"

"Hello, can you say 'monologue?' Sheesh, I thought Weathervane was supposed to be the wind bag." Danger called up to them. Upset by the waterfowl's annoying manner, Weathervane clouded up to throw some lightning at the mallard. Forgetting his earlier revulsion, Duck grabbed the gunpowder filled coconut shells and quacked out reemerging near the clouds.

"All right, Loonatics, lets go out and play before it rains." Ace grinned as his team launched themselves at the enemy. So Danger had jumped the gun, Ace found he didn't mind. With a clear course of action before him, Danger Duck was fearless and resolved. Nothing kept that mallard down, not even common sense. "Of course, with some, common sense ain't so common."

Lexi ran to the kite and strapped herself in, trusting Ace to launch her safely into the air. Ace turned the large lever to cock the crossbow style catapult while Tech calculated the needed trajectory. Then Ace aimed his eye lasers at the trigger and launched Lexi into the air. Meanwhile Rev, his eyes glowing red, took off like a shot, flying at supersonic speed to run interference for both her and Danger Duck.

"Oh,-oh,-oh!" Rev zipped excitedly around the villains, moving too fast to make himself a target. The red plumed roadrunner grinned wickedly at the supervillians' confusion at finding themselves suddenly surrounded by so many of their would-be victims. "Next-time,-how-about-sending-us-to-the-polar-ice-cap-so-we-can-get-in-some-skiing?"

"How, . . . how is this possible?!" The villainous trio had come in expecting to find the Loonatics already destroyed . . . not taking the time off for a vacation. With as relaxed as the anthromorphs appeared, it almost seemed as if they were expecting them to drop in for tea. Being somewhat dismayed (as in very) that the Loonatics were prepared for them, the ensuing battle was embarrassingly short. Mastermind grumped. "Trust the animals to revert back to nature."

While Ace covered him with his eye lasers, Slam turned his spin cycle on suction, drawing the three prison escapees closer. Lexi fought Weathervane's updrafts with her kite to bring herself close enough to brain blast them. And Rev flew circles around Lexi, covering her and distracting the villains so she wouldn't get hit. But it was Danger, who chucked in coconut bomb after coconut bomb, each followed by a fire egg to detonate it that actually brought them down. He had to admit, using the coconuts was better than his own eggs alone. His eggs would not have seeded the clouds.

A sudden storm rained out the clouds, leaving a rainbow in the sky and no clouds from which to cast lighting. With the clouds gone, Lexi glided in. Her brain blasts stunned the villains, knocking them out of the sky. Massive cratered into the sandy beach with Weathervane and Mastermind on top. Massive groaned and shook his head, but before he could recover, Ace popped them all with a dose of 'poppy dust' for a Wizard of Oz type sleep. "And dey're out for da count! Okay, Loonatics, let's wrap 'em up and deliver dese packages."

Mastermind clamped a hand to her nose and mouth and rolled off of Massive and Weathervane to escape the cloud of sleep dust. The big headed villain slipped into the nearby, verdant jungle.

Slam spun up a whirwind to blow the cover off their boathouse, revealing a tight little ship that the Loonatics all worked together to make. It had a mast that they could erect and sails that they could hoist, but its primary motors would be Slam and Rev. The Acme heroes had actually been ready to leave the island yesterday, but they had waited for the villains to show up before leaving for Acme-Australia. From there they could easily get transportation to their own sector of the city planet. Ace figured it was easier to wait another day or two in paradise for the escaped convicts to come to them, than for the Loonatics to have to hunt them down after they got back to civilization.

"Go ahead and prepare for launch," Tech called to his teammates as he took off into the jungle after Mastermind. He had to stop Mallory and get any gizmo's off her that she could use. "I'll be right back.

Mastermind ran, formulating a plan that would release the idiots with whom she had broken out of jail and get revenge on the Loonatics. The stupid animals! The sheer culture shock of being forced suddenly primitive would have unhinged any real, 28th century sentient being onto insanity. Mastermind abruptly stopped when she barreled into a clearing to be confronted with the most bizarre contraption of stone and wood that she had ever seen. Perhaps Tech had gone insane after all.

"All science is fascinating, Mallory. Not just the technical disciplines. You shouldn't be so narrow minded with that fat head of yours and branch out a little." Tech stepped into the clearing, his eyes and hands glowing green with his magnetism.

"You wouldn't dare!" Mastermind exclaimed as she felt Tech's magnetism tug at her small stash of inventions that she kept on her as well as her cybernetic supervillain's outfit.

"I wouldn't dare what, Mallory?" Tech practically snarled. "Strip you of all metal? . . .. Leave you stranded on some deserted island half the world away?"

In desperation, Mastermind reached for a small stash of components to form into a weapon. "Whirling blade barrier!"

But Tech was through playing. He blasted Mastermind and her technopathy created throwing star back with repellent magnetism as he had with her cybernetic shock troops during their previous altercation. Mallory's slight frame rocketed back toward the boulders that Tech had used in his island inventions; and the coyote lunged forward to catch her over-sized head with his hand to prevent it from splitting against the stone.

Dazed, Mastermind struggled to focus on the figure bending over her. "I didn't know you still cared, Tech."

"I care . . ." Tech studied Mallory's eyes, searching for a trace of the person he once knew. But then the girl with whom he went to college sneered, breathing out the single word 'dog' and he finished his sentence. " . . . to see you in prison."

Tech finished magnetizing all metal off of the supervillain and hauled her to her feet. He then turned his back and walked back to the beach, fiddling with Mallory's devices, delighted with his new toys.

"Come," Tech called back to his one time pupil. "Or not. Your choice. You may stay here if you prefer. Incarceration on a deserted isle might be more effective at containing you than a high tech penitentiary anyway."

The mangy, flee bitten cur! He didn't even bother to tie her up! But Mastermind feared that Tech was serious about leaving her on the island alone—without any technology or scrap of metal. Humiliated and furious, she nonetheless followed him. Without anything for her powers to work with, she was just a three foot tall girl that didn't stand a chance of taking on any of the Loonatics . . . including her ex-mentor.


End file.
